I’m 15 and last year I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes after almost dying and being rushed to hospital. I have always wanted to be in the military particularly the marines or the navy. Obviously because of my diagnosis I can’t and it makes me feel like a pussy.
I’m healthy and able bodied and keep my diabetes under control. Yet I’m not allowed to join the military even in a non combat role because of my condition.
I figure that if I can’t be in the military I’ll try to become a firefighter because the fire department allow diabetics to join. Even though I know firefighting is a very necessary job and very difficult it still makes me feel like shit that I can’t serve in the military.
I guess what I’m really asking is if enough people serve in the military for me to feel like less of a man for not doing so.
24 comments
The UK military has 148k active personnel, which works out at 0.22% of the population. As part of the 99.78% of the population who isn’t in the military you’re in good company
So anyone that isn’t a firefighter or a soldier isn’t manly? Aren’t a lot of people in the military women anyway? Does that make them manly?
You’re not allowed to join the military because what happens if you’re on an op, you lose your pack and don’t have any insulin? You get really sick and take at least two other people out of commission to look after you. If you have two diabetics and they both run out of insulin then you lose even more. Its not unfair, its survival.
Not many to put it simply.
That’s a very strange and unhealthy attitude mate, I support our armed forces but worshiping them is a little weird. You’re only 15 so hopefully you grow out of it.
Your only 15, your idea of what constitutes manly will change with age. There’s a saying everyone what’s to save the earth; nobody what’s to help mum do the dishes.
It’s the Royal Marines if you are in the U.K. OP
Yes, you are a pussy. You are so pathetic and weak that you can’t even get your pancreas to do it’s job properly. You are not a proper man and should hang your pathetic little head in shame.
ALTERNATIVELY…
Whatever job you end up doing is only a small part of who you are and you shouldn’t use it to define your worth. Do something with your life that makes you proud. Do it well. Do it with professionalism. Hold your head up high. Don’t dwell on what you can’t do, excel at what you can do.
I’d suggest therapy before going into work.
Your obsession with being macho screams insecure as fuck.
Not a healthy or rational understanding you have about the military or what identifies someone being tough.
There’s what, around 150,000 in the UK serving? Out of 67 million. 0.2% off the top of my head?
I served, it did not make me any more manly or accomplished, I’m now working on becoming a Paramedic, does that mean I’m not manly?
You’re 15, so it’s understandable that your mentality is immature. My advice would be that you’ll most likely grow out of this attitude, and to be honest if these were your reasons for serving you probably wouldn’t have been very happy, the praise you receive from your friends and family is few and far between compared to daily PT, long foreign deployments and an unstable home life.
You’ve got to stop listening to people like Andrew rate and drop that toxic masculinity. The army isn’t this glorified thing that only real men can do – it’s a job and not a particularly nice one at that. Put your mind to something that will make you feel good about yourself not what you think other people will feel good about.
Are you by chance in one of the cadet forces at the moment? The ‘feeling like a pussy’ is something they enforce (or enforced, I left over 10 years ago) there which is why I ask.
To answer your first question, not many. Plenty of men find fulfillment and success in life without joining the military.
Secondly, the military is full of fairly regular people, like everywhere else. They’re not that special.
If you define your life objectives towards some goal that you can never achieve or which sets an unreasonable expectation in your mind then you’ll never find any fulfillment in life.
Stop playing Call of Duty mate. Play a bit of Forza and you can try being an F1 driver.
Wouldn’t worry about it. Being a fireman will be an awesome job. Also worth challenging your idea of what masculinity is, as certain forces in society will give you a skewed view of what it is.
As someone who’s been in, you’re not missing anything.
Welcome to the T1 community! Goes a bit beyond your question but never let people put you down because of diabetes. Yes there are restrictions (I would love to be able to give blood) but hardly anything significant is closed. You can still do so much. Never be afraid to ask questions.
And as much as diabetes doesn’t have to be your identity, you need to let go of this national/masculine focus. A lot of it isn’t healthy in any way. If you do want to help people or do service for this country so many more roles you can do without the faux masculinity. The few people I know who joined it did not have a healthy experience. Good luck for whatever you do 👍🏻
This is a very weird mindset , you don’t need to
Serve your country or owe it anything.
This just sounds like the creepy american recruitment tactics to youngsters talking about serving your country 🤣
No one is going to kiss your ass here and think your the man for being in the military ….
Its crap work for crap pay …. you sound incredibly immature would recommend you just focus on studying and forget your career path for now until you stop picking jobs you think are macho and will allow you to support your country.
You seem to have a rather unhealthy attitude towards what you deem makes you a “Man”.
Please don’t tell me you’re an Andrew state fan?
But that’s by the by.
How do you feel about your condition? Do you feel you have something to prove because of it? You need to do extra to show it doesn’t impact you or make you weak?
Try not to make your life a mission to prove to others you aren’t a pussy as you stated. If you’re going to chase a career just to make a statement, I don’t see it ending well for you.
You probably need to reach out and get some support, it seems to me you have some underlying issues that probably need to be explored
I really think you need to take a step back and evaluate what masculinity really means.
You’re mixing up serving in the British armed services with being manly. Those are two entirely different things.
Your use of ‘pussy’ and ‘soy boy’ also suggests that you’ve been exposed to a lot of toxic masculinity.
I think you should re-evaluate what your idea of what manly is……
Manly might be running into a burning house to save someone…..
It might be going to war and shooting someone…..
However you can still be a man and not do those things…..
You can grow up, marry someone, have a daughter and by treating your wife with respect , teach your daughter what it means to be in a healthy relationship when she is older,
Or it might be taking your kid to a concert and sitting outside in your car while they enjoy themselves at the expense of your time and comfort,
Or it might be picking up litter cause someone else has dropped it
Or it might be being polite and respect to the old person who is taking ages at the till,
Or it might be standing up on the train and defending someone being shouted at
Or it might be silently working a job that is shit for years and years knowing that you are providing for your family and they will grow up well fed…
The above might not be the true answers to what it means to be a man, but the point I think I’m trying to make is that gun/action/obvious hero stuff might not be either.
I think , in my mind, being a man is being comfortable enough in yourself to not worry about what others think, and comfortable enough to uphold and strengthen others around you, sometimes at the detriment to yourself.
Unless you come from some shithole northern town with nothing going for it there is literally no reason to join the forces, and joining up because you feel like a pussy is literally THE WORST reason to join up. Take it from an ex-soldier from a shithole northern town.
If you want to feel manly do manly things, build a shed or build a loving family. Don’t become a fucking incel though.
If you want to protect the country but can’t due to diabetes, have you thought about looking into the intelligence or even counter terror services as an officer or staff member? Just a thought.
Although probably best that you work on your ideas of masculinity before you go anywhere near policing or firefighting, they’re already suffering presently without you adding these beliefs into the mix – and I mean this in the nicest way.
Mate honestly it’s not as great as it looks, the sign off rate is so high recently, the army is undermanned, I had firefighter selection the same month I had army selection a few years ago and chose the army, I fucking regret it now, I get paid peanuts compared to fire service and treated like I’m 5, it’s not worth it when there’s no active conflicts happening, when the next one kicks off you’ll have an influx of people signing up again
I know one person who is actively serving and one who served. Outside of that I don’t know anyone who has been in the military (and is in his 70s.) . It is definitely not commonplace. As for being a “pussy” as you keep saying, I’d rather be a pussy and alive than “hard” and dead or alive and suffering from PTSD.
There are lots of better things to do with your life than fighting wars for politicians who wouldn’t throw water on you if you were on fire.